Rachel Cooke

London

Writer and TV Critic at The Guardian

Observer writer, Statesman TV critic. Her Brilliant Career; Kitchen Person; Virago Book of Friendship (Norton US 2025). Insta @msrachelcooke Bsky @msrachelcooke

Articles

Muriel Spark meets her match

5 days ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

There’s an uncanny closeness between biographer Frances Wilson and her wildly brilliant subject In these days, the dying days of paper, biography is busy gnawing hungrily on its own bones, and it's all a bit dusty and wearying as well as very meta.
Greggs is worth waxing lyrical about: it's on a roll

6 days ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

The news that the Greggs sausage roll is to be immortalised in the “culture capital” section of Madame Tussauds, where it will sit on a “regal” blue velvet cushion in the company of Princess Diana and Stormzy, has been greeted with a certain amount of amusement by the media – and I must admit to finding it quite funny myself.
Mountainhead review: A tech-bro horror show

1 week ago | newstatesman.com | Rachel Cooke

Here in my TV critic’s penthouse, with its giant bags of snacks, hand-knitted throws and wraparound 24/7 flatscreens, Jesse “Succession” Armstrong has at last chucked me some more red meat to chew on in the form of Mountainhead, a film he has both written and directed. Obviously, I couldn’t be more pleased. The stomach has been rumbling for a while now. I still miss his last lot of monsters; part of me will always mourn Tom Wambsgans.
Doing More With Less: The Sustainable Strategy That Actually Works

1 week ago | advisorpedia.com | Rachel Cooke

It’s getting in here. Pressure’s on. Expectations are expanding, budgets are shrinking, and headcount is frozen. And “do more with less” is thing we’re all being asked to do…with no real instruction on how. Makes so many of us feel expendable.
How misogyny makes women ill

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

A fierce polemic about sexism’s impact on healthcare benefits from its author’s own experience of medical neglect The sobbing young woman had barely closed the door behind her before the colorectal surgeon turned his face to me and said: “If you ever have children, for God’s sake make sure you have an elective caesarean. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.” As a graduate medical student, I masked a secret beneath my baggy attire. “Actually, I’m five months pregnant,” I replied.
The Bombing of Pan Am 103 is poignant and fascinating

2 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Rachel Cooke

It is a strange thing, to be moved by luggage; to be brought almost to tears by the sight of an unwieldy suitcase or a bulging holdall. But in The Bombing of Pan Am 103, the BBC’s new drama about the Lockerbie air disaster, baggage does a lot of work, emotional and otherwise. Obviously, in the first instance it’s a metaphor for lives cut brutally short at 31,000 feet.
Sami Tamimi: | The Observer

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

Inspired by the loneliness of lockdown, Sami Tamimi’s first solo cookbook, Boustany, updates the Palestinian classics of his childhood Portrait by Amit LennonIn the spring of 2020, Sami Tamimi and his partner packed up their house in London, loaded their two dogs into the car, and drove to Umbria, in Italy. At the time, they planned to stay only a few weeks, but the Covid lockdown soon put paid to that.
Alison Bechdel: ‘It might seem like I’m taking the piss but I love these characters’

2 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

The bestselling graphic memoirist tackles capitalism in her latest book, but its stars are a lovable cast of well-meaning liberals – and a Maga type or two. She talks Trump, reality TV, and why she would like to move to Moominland Portrait by Oliver PariniSometimes – whisper it – even the best of writers begins to tire of the sound of their own voice.
Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential at 25

3 weeks ago | observer.co.uk | Rachel Cooke

The book that made the chef a star still has much to teach us, especially about being a customer I remember the uncommon arrival of Anthony Bourdain in the public consciousness oddly well. Word spread like the really bad kind of chip-pan fire. One day, a certain subset of people were absolutely fine about ordering fish in a restaurant on a Monday; the next, all they could talk about was why this was the move of a total amateur.
Methods to Reduce Manager Burnout

3 weeks ago | reworked.co | Rachel Cooke

Burnout doesn’t only come from doing too much. It also comes from doing too much of the wrong things. The burnout conversation is stuck. With an estimated annual economic impact of $2T, the burnout crisis demands resolution. But we continue to treat burnout as a workload problem. And in an era of “do more with less,” where doing less often isn’t an option, that makes it feel unsolvable. Managers Are Hit Hard With Burnout Burnout is more than a volume problem.